Solar Power to Cut Colossal Cruise Ship Emissions!

[wtmusic]

Have you ever felt a twinge of enviro-guilt while on a 3-week cruise to the Bahamas? I hate that feeling! But now we can cruise with a clear conscience:

Good news out of Los Angeles, where the completion of a 1-megawatt (MW) solar power system covering 71,500 square feet will now allow ships docked between cruises to access some 1.2 million kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable solar power instead of using their diesel generators for shore-side energy needs.

This news means your trip's CO2 emissions will be slashed by a whopping .04%, (if your trip only made port in Los Angeles on sunny days). It doesn't take a genius to see that cruise ships, with their annual emissions of 5.4 trillion tons of CO2, will now be eco-friendly - with annual emissions of 5.396 trillion tons, or thereabouts.

Here's a ship equipped with solar panels, which on sunny days provide more than enough juice to power the ship's radio:



http://theenergycollective.com/taylenpeterson/48894/solar-power-cut-colossal-cruise-ship-emissions?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=The+Energy+Collective+%28all+posts%29

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

1. Every little bit helps!

[wtmusic]

2. Got that right, .1%

I was afraid I was going to have to give up cruises, but with this and recycling grocery bags, I'm an eco-warrior!

[Kolesar]

3. Yuppie brat ecofrauds are preventing nuclear powered cruise ships

:mockery:

[NNadir]

9. Mockery from dumb guys is the sincerest form of flattery.

There is NOT ONE dumb anti-nuke who gives a rat's ass about all of the diesel engines at sea, which is responsible for something like 10% of the planet's air pollution.

The reason is that EVERY anti-nuke without exception would rather cause the death of http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/index.html">2 million people each year
rather than face the easily demonstrable FACT that their fear mongering fantasies about nuclear energy are, well, fear mongering fantasies.

Nuclear energy need not be perfect to be better than all the stuff that fear mongering mindless anti-nukes don't care about, and, in fact, <em>everything</em> else.

It only has to be better than everything else, which it is.

Have a nice cruise ship mentality consumerist evening of despising the science of Glenn Seaborg.

[lfairban]

4. How about this?

What about a WIND powered cruise ship? :shrug:

[joshcryer]

5. There was actually a novel idea to use kites to pull cruise ships along, it was never explored.

Just concept stuff as far as I know.

[lfairban]

6. Oh, sorry. I forgot my

:sarcasm:

[joshcryer]

7. Yeah, I know you were being sarcastic, but I really liked the jet stream kite idea.

Use nanotubes and carbon fabric based kites to pull large ships along the tropic of capicorn, etc.

Unfortunately the renewable solution invariably has fantasy talk backing it.

[wtmusic]

8. Gaining in popularity

"Climb aboard one of these majestic sailing ships and set sail to exotic locations. Experience life at sea up close, on vessels ranging in size from 6 passenger Schooners to 300 passenger Tall Ships."

http://www.sailingshipadventures.com/

Comparable in price, but no casino or floor show. :)

[joshcryer]

12. I like that! :)

[cbayer]

10. Maybe just a drop in the bucket, but the best news is that they won't be spewing

emissions into the air while in the harbor. And that's good for everybody in the LA area.

[TheMadMonk]

11. That is a very good point. Location can make all the difference...

...to an otherwise pointless seeming exercise. Although the option has always existed to plug into the grid while docked.

[joshcryer]

13. Ports are already cracking down on secondary emissions, which is good, of course.

But CO2 is the most impactful of them all. Indeed, aerosol emissions contribute to dimming... it's actually a lose-lose, by lowering aerosol emissions and turning a blind eye to CO2 emissions, what states are doing is just perpetuating the biggest problem our environment has ever faced.

But that's how they work, pick at the tiniest little thing and make it out to be significant.